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HIV Treatment Bulletin

Latest UK HIV statistics: 42% of diagnosis are late and disparities in care continue by ethnicity 

9 October 2025. Related: Early access, Special reports, Other news.

Simon Collins, HIV i-Base

On 7 October the latest HIV surveillance report was published online by UKHSA, together with seven updated datasets. [1]

The report covers statistics on HIV testing, PrEP, new diagnoses and other HIV-related care outcomes from sexual health clinics up until December 2024, with demographics based on England.

The breakdowns include inequalities in care outcomes including in minority ethnicised populations. These are complex results, including by country of birth, which still show the highest rates of declining HIV testing as 29% in white people born in the UK.

Despite challenging conditions, HIV testing has increased, with opt-out testing in emergency departments proving incredibly successful, now accounting for 8% of new diagnoses.

However, rates of late diagnosis remain high with 42% diagnosed with a CD4 count <350, even after adjusting for acute infection.

Trend data is reported for the last five year period but this needs to be interpreted to allow for the impact of COVID from 2020.

Several sections on HIV diagnoses have much lower denominators and state that “Data exclude people diagnosed before continuing their HIV care in England”. This perhaps refers to people who might have previously be diagnosed outside the UK. However, this important detail needs to be clarified given the increase in HIV diagnoses that were the headline results from the previous report. [2[

Selected highlighted results are listed below but please refer to the full report and datasets for details.

HIV testing

  • Overall there was slight increase in HIV testing (3%) but with higher increases in many Black and other ethnicised groups.
  • HIV positive rates were also higher in ethnicised minority groups.
  • High uptake of partner notification (85%, 830/975) with 5% (43/830) leading to partner diagnoses.

PrEP

  • Over 111,000 people accessed oral PrEP in 2024, a 7% increase compared to 2023
  • Approximately 10% of people attending clinics were categorised as being at high risk for HIV, of whom 76% accessed PrEP.
  • PrEP access by those at high risk was highest in gay and bisexual men (79% in white 78%  in ethnicised minorities), and significantly lower in Black African heterosexuals (35% women and 36% men), and among other ethnic minority heterosexuals (44%).

New diagnoses

  • There were 3,043 new HIV diagnoses in the UK in 2024, a 4% decrease from 2023.
  • Opt-out testing for bloodborne viruses (BBVs) in emergency departments accounted for to 8% of all new HIV diagnoses in 2024.
  • Diagnoses in England decreased by 6% from 859 in 2023 to 810 in 2024 (by 6% in white men vs 2% in men from ethnicised minorities.
  • Between 2023 and 2024, new HIV diagnoses in England among Black African heterosexual men increased by 15% (231 to 265) but decreased by 5% among Black African heterosexual women (441 to 418).

Late HIV diagnoses and mortality

  • Late diagnosis (CD4 <350) was reported in 42% (928/2,196). The median CD4 count was 359 cells/mm3.
  • Rates were heterosexuals (men 52% and women 46%) vs ~30% in gay and bisexual men.
  • Late diagnosis was associated with 10-fold higher risk of mortality in the first year.
  • All-cause mortality fell by 14% (from 751 to 643) with reductions in all groups except African women (14% increase from 69 to 79).

Overall outcomes

  • England data from now reports UNAIDS targets of 95:99:98. However, the denominators for these targets are the numbers of people accessing care during the previous year, with no allowance for poeple who disconnect from care.
  • The majority of people living with HIV are now older than 50 (52%) (53,734/103,689)
  • Viral suppression on ART was significantly lower in 15-24 year old group (only 91% (1,233 of 1,351) vs 99% in people older than 65.

comments

These surveillance data are essential to understand effectiveness of HIV testing, treatment and prevention programmes at difficult times. The UK-HSA team should also be recognised for this work.

Although the results are show the impact of successful policies they also continue to report significant differences in care for minority ethnicised populations, especially over access to PrEP.

High rates of late diagnoses are still reported in all groups.

Approach to PrEP should be updated to reflect that recent UK guidelines that attempt to broaden access to PrEP by no longer needing to be at high risk to be able to access it.

Although data on transgender and non-binary people are now collected, the tables (37 to 39) still use incorrect and confusing language. This is the third year that i-Base have raised this but the contradictions that limit how this important data can be interpreted have still not been changed.

References

  1. UK HSA. HIV testing PrEP new HIV diagnoses and care outcomes for people accessing HIV services: 2025 report.
    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hiv-annual-data-tables
  2. HTB. HIV diagnoses in England jump by 51% in 2023: missing targets and highlighting disparities in access to care. HTB (06 October 2024).
    https://i-base.info/htb/48896